Leftovers
by Jessahme Wren
Summary: Humor/Crackfic. Two Thanksgiving ficlets for your hopeful enjoyment! Lizzington Holiday fic.
1. Homeland Security

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Red peered into the cavernous depths with rapt attention. The heat from within blasted his face, threatening to singe his eyebrows or, at the very least, ruddy the tender skin along his eyes and cheeks. Liz appeared beside him, as equally engaged by the subject, one errant strand of hair waving in the shimmering heat.

"So, what do you think?"

Red narrowed his gaze, his forehead wrinkling in consternation. He considered. "It looks done to me," he said seriously.

The turkey within was indeed a beautiful golden brown, with a seemingly crisp, taut, and glistening skin. Liz depressed the bulb on the turkey baster and steeped it in more of its own juices very much like she'd seen on a dozen or so cooking shows on so many cable networks. She sighed. For her first Thanksgiving dinner, this was going surprisingly well. She allowed herself a little smile.

She was just about to close the oven door when her eyes fell upon a small, peculiar- looking protuberance jutting from the turkey's breast. She furrowed her brow.

"Red…"

But he had already spotted it. It was a white plastic plunger about an inch and a half in length, and it extended from the flesh of the turkey where it disappeared into a red circular base.

"Let's get it out of there," Red said seriously. Grabbing some potholders, he hefted the roasting pan onto the stovetop where they could both examine it properly.

The oven door closed with a muted thud. Liz wiped her hands on the front of her apron and tucked the renegade strand behind her ears. For a moment, they simply looked at it, but the longer they peered at the plastic oddity, the more suspicious it appeared. Liz spoke first. "What the hell is that thing Red?"

He turned, looking at her, his demeanour vastly more serious. In lieu of answering, he posed another question, his tone grave. "Have you been out of the apartment at all today?"

Liz's first inclination was to say "no," but then she remembered. "Um, yeah," she said, her mind working, "I went down stairs to get the mail. I couldn't've been gone for more than a few minutes, though."

Red looked warily at the golden brown turkey as though it were now a coiled viper waiting to strike. "That's long enough," he said darkly. "We better call Aram." He whipped out his cell phone.

Liz put a hand on his arm, alarmed. "Red, what are you not telling me?"

His heart thundered as he dialled the number. "I've seen this before," he said evenly. "That piece of plastic…it's the detonator on a small-scale explosive device favoured by a particularly nasty criminal by the name of Chip Stouffer. We've had some unsavoury entanglements in the past." He worked his mouth, his eyes narrowed and his face serious. "That plunger is a weathervane. The gradual cooling of the turkey or any sudden vibration will trigger a highly volatile explosion."

Liz eyed the turkey warily, the white-bone finger of the anomaly in question pointing obtrusively upward.

"But how—"

Red ended the call in disgust. "Aram's not answering." His eyes searched the room, vying for something to help diffuse the situation. He made his way around the kitchen, fumbling through cabinets and opening drawers.

"I watched a man diffuse one of these once," he said as he plundered under the sink. "If we can disrupt the temperature gradation, cool it off quickly, then the bead of mercury inside the device will stall and so will detonation." He straightened, having found what he was looking for in a pair of compact fire extinguishers. "It's not a permanent fix, but it'll buy us some time."

Liz eyed him seriously, game face slipping firmly into place, and grabbed one of the fire extinguishers. With a resolute nod, she pulled the pin. They took aim and blasted the perfectly cooked turkey until it was complete covered in fire retardant foam. If all went according to plan, the chemical reaction of the CO2 would cool the bird quickly and render the explosive harmless until the bomb squad arrived.

They emptied their ammunition and sank to the kitchen floor in front of the sink. Fire retardant was everywhere; it slogged down the walls and billowed from the countertops to creep along the floor. Tufts of foam peppered Liz's hair and melted into Red's jeans. And, beneath a particularly rotund mound atop the stove, sat their Thanksgiving turkey.

As they sagged against cupboard, Red's burner phone rang. It was Aram. Red gave a small sigh of relief.

"Aram, thank God. I need the bomb squad…there's been an incident at the apartment." He paused, no doubt to register his inquiry, and listened as he spoke. "No, no we're not hurt, but we're going to need back up…an explosive…yeah. Someone gained entrance to the apartment and planted a localized explosive in the oven, of all places." He stopped, listening to Aram. "What? No no-inthe turkey. Plastic detonator cap very much like the one from Hainan."

He described the offending implement in detail. A few moments passed. As Aram spoke, a strange look passed over Red's face.

For a moment, Red was silent. He swallowed. "Oh," he said a little awkwardly. "Are you sure? A beat. "Uh huh."

In the confusion and aftermath of the kitchen crisis, neither of them had heard the early dinner guests arrive at the front door. Using his key, Dembe had let himself in and now stood in the doorway of the ruined kitchen. His daughter was close behind him, little Elle in her arms. They were dressed for dinner.

"Raymond?"

Red looked up, surprised to see them so early and a bit dumbstruck by the new intel he'd just received. "Hi," he said a little impishly. He turned to Liz who was looking more flustered by the minute. "Well, the bad news is, that wasn't an explosive," he began evenly. There was a smudge of fire retardant foam on his cheek, and his shirt had been ruined by the blowback.

Liz looked at him incredulously, one eyebrow shooting skyward. "And the good news?"

Red quirked his mouth. "Apparently the turkey's done."

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	2. Black Ops

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Aram sat in the early morning stillness, snugged into a fluffy bathrobe, thoroughly miserable. He was chill, and his head and body ached with a dozen little horrors associated with seasonal flu.

He looked dismally into his TARDIS mug, the lemon-ginger concoction steaming blissfully against his stuffy nose, offering a brief respite from the stabbing sinus pain and pressure that had dammed his breathing and precluded any hope of sleep.

Not like he could sleep now, anyway.

He displaced the tea, his fingers finding the keyboard of his laptop as he pulled up the schematic he'd studied for hours the previous evening. The mission was a tricky one, he knew, fraught with every potential for complication and failure, and while he had every confidence in Liz's prowess in the field, he was unsure of the amount of experience she'd had with these types of missions. In fact, after the initial briefing Aram feared that Liz might be underestimating the difficulty of this particular assignment.

After a few keystrokes, he donned the headset and activated his comm.

"Agent, what's your twenty?"

Aram's voice broke into her thoughts with comical insistence. Because of his current physical condition, his usual friendly yet business-like clip came out a bit nasally and muffled. Elmer Fudd running tactical.

She smiled and put a hand to her ear, trying to look inconspicuous. "I'm at the drop point, about twenty yards out."

Liz's breath came in little puffs, frosting the air lightly as she exhaled. Her eyes narrowed as she viewed the entrance, miles away it seemed, in the early morning dark.

It was 4:49 am. Ten minutes to go.

Aram glared at the schematic, making mental calculations, and frowned.

"You need to be closer to the entrance, Liz. Once those doors open, time is of the essence."

Liz sighed. She'd agreed to take on this task as a favour to Aram. Since he had the flu, he had asked Liz to stand in for him at the Black Friday sale during which the "must have" tech toy of the season would be sold exclusively at this store and for a limited time only. Fail this mission and run the risk of Aram missing out on the latest technological wonder which, according to him, would "completely destroy his street cred." This was probably the reason Aram was not his usual congenial self. That, coupled with the fact that he was sick, did not a happy Aram make.

Liz sighed. "I'm plenty close Aram. Just trust me, ok?"

He fixed his mouth, anything but believing. "What's the concentration of hostiles?"

She couldn't suppress a laugh. "You know, you're usually the one telling me that."

Aram sipped at the steadily cooling tea. "And I usually have drone surveillance and the full arsenal of Post Office intel at my disposal when I'm not sitting in my bathrobe feeling like crap. How many between you and the door?"

Liz did a quick assessment of her surroundings. Men, women, and to her surprise, even a few sleepy children stood close together in line outside the store, bundled against the cold. Some had thermoses, and some were talking on phones…others perused their well-worn copies of the After Thanksgiving Day circular, their bodies tense and faces expectant. She did a quick count. "Twenty, maybe twenty-five. Jammed pretty tight."

Aram fiddled with the teabag. "You think you can handle it?"

Liz's eyes narrowed and her voice betrayed the edge acquired of waiting for two hours in a freezing drizzle outside a locked store with an army of crazed, sleep-deprived bargain hunters. "Of course I can handle it, Aram, it's only shopping."

Aram pursed her lips, considering. He drummed his fingers against the mug. "And you're clear on the objective."

She rolled her eyes. "I've been briefed, yes."

Aram let out a breath. "Ok. Let me know once you're in; I've calculated the most efficient route through the store, taking into account probable areas of heavy traffic."

Liz fidgeted with her cell phone. "Absolutely," she said, not really paying attention. She suddenly wished she was back home, spooning under the covers with Red, instead of freezing her ass off in a shopping mall parking lot with Bossy!Aram running comm. She was cold, wet, and irritated.

As she was daydreaming about sleepy morning sex and croissants in bed, Liz hadn't noticed the subtle change among her fellow shoppers. The predawn parking lot now crackled with tension, and she was startled at the abrupt change in the people waiting in line with her. The crowd had become more vocal, and somewhere a ten-second countdown ensued. Liz absently looked at her watch again.

Before she had time to act, however, the throng suddenly pushed forward in a massive wave, briefly catching her off guard. People pressed in on all sides, the girth of Gore-Tex and down jackets threatening to squeeze the life from her, and she nearly stumbled. Up ahead inside the store, Liz could see shoppers break free in all directions, pushing and shoving as they rushed full speed to their respective areas of interest. A few Red Shirts stood at the door, vainly holding their arms in front of them and chattering nervously into walkie-talkies.

It was chaos. She glanced from one crazed, single-minded face to another and knew instantly that she was out of her depth.

Stunned, Liz put a hand to her ear as a bristle of unexpected fear raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

"Uhm, Aram," she said a little wide-eyed, "I think I'm gonna need backup."

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Trying something a little lighthearted; drop a note if they made you smile :). Happy Thanksgiving to all celebrating!


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